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1 - Why Focus on Implementation in Education Reform?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 November 2021

By
Alan Ruby  and
Colleen McLaughlin
Edited by
Colleen McLaughlin  and
Alan Ruby
Colleen McLaughlin
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Alan Ruby
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania
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Summary

There is constant pressure on governments and policymakers globally to raise the standard of education and to develop the appropriate curriculum and pedagogies to enable students to fit the world they will enter post-school; there are also international comparisons. There is a body of scholarship in the leadership field on change and reform, largely focused on the processes and ways of working. The policy and academic world have also focused on these matters, largely in the form of theoretical discussions or critical debates about issues of transnational work, school effectiveness or school improvement. There has been less focus on the implementation of reform or change. This chapter synthesises the literature on implementation in the fields of public policy and education and reviews existing thinking and scholarship on reform and implementation. The authors identify the common understandings, different approaches and gaps in the field, thus providing a rationale for the book and for the choice of case studies.

Keywords

educational reformimplementationapproaches to changemodels of implementation
Type
Chapter
Information
Implementing Educational Reform
Cases and Challenges
 , pp. 1 - 16
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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References

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